Mind Games
Mind Games
Mind Games
2nd EDITION
Sam Vaknin
Created by:
Lidija Rangelovska, Skopje
REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA
CONTENTS
Anton's Trap
Live Burial
The Capgras Shift
Folie a Plusieurs
The Con Man Cometh
The Elephant's Call
I Hear Voices
The Last Days
Lucid Dreams
Night Terror
A Dream Come True
The Galatea of Cotard
Fugue
Sexsomnia
The Author
MindGames
Return
Live Burial
Return
The Capgras Shift
1. The Sinking
My marriage aborted, my private practice stillborn, I
packed stale possessions in two flabby suitcases and
bade my sterile apartment a tearless goodbye. On the
spur of the moment, I had applied a fortnight before to a
government post and, to my consternation, had won it
handily. I was probably the only applicant.
It was an odd sort of job. The state authorities had just
finished submerging 4 towns, 6 cemeteries, and
numerous farms under the still, black waters of a new
dammed reservoir of drinking water. The process was
drawn out and traumatic. Tight-knit communities
unraveled, families scattered, businesses ruined. The
government undertook to provide the former inhabitants
with psychological support: an on-site therapist (that's
me), social workers, even a suicide line.
I had to relocate, hence my haphazard departure. I took
the bus to the nearest big city and hitchhiked from there.
The fare just about amortized my travel allowance for
the entire week. I had to trudge in mud the last two or
three kilometers only to find myself in a disorienting,
nightmarish landscape: isled rooftops and church spires
puncturing the abnormally still surface of a giant man-
made lake. I waded ashore, amidst discarded furniture
and toys and contemplated the buried devastation.
My clinic, I discovered, was a ramshackle barrack,
replete with a derelict tiny lawn, strewn with rusting
hulks of household goods. I was shown by a surly
superintendent into a tiny enclosure: my flat. Crammed
into a cubicle were a folding metal bed, military-issue
blankets, and a depleted pillow. Still, I slept like a baby
and woke up refreshed.
The first thing that struck me was the silence,
punctuated by a revving-thrumming engine now and
then: not a twitter, not a hum, not a human voice. There
was no hot water, so I merely washed my armpits, my
face and hands and feet and combed my hair the best I
could, which wasn't much by anyone's standards. I was
plunged into the maelstrom straightaway. My first
patients, an elderly couple, their disintegrating marriage
and crumbling health mirrored by the withering of their
habitat.
The days passed, consumed by endless processions of
juvenile delinquents, losers, the old, the sickly, the
orphaned, the unemployed, and the abandoned, the
detritus of human settlements now made to vanish at the
bottom of a lake. It was a veritable makeshift refugee
camp and I found myself immersed in the woes and
complaints of misfits who lost their sense of community
and means of livelihood and sought meaning in their
cruel individual tragedies, but in vain.
On the Tuesday of the second week of what was fast
becoming a surrealistic quagmire, I met Isabel. She was
the very last in a long list of appointments and I kept
praying that she would not keep hers, as many of them
were wont to do. But she did and punctually so. I was
struck by her regal bearing, her poise, her coiffed hair,
and her dazzling but tasteful jewelry. Her equine face
and aquiline nose meshed well with just a hint of the
oriental slant and cheekbones to render her exotic.
She sat unbidden and watched me intently, benignly
ignoring my rhetorical question:
"You are Isabel Kidlington, aren't you?"
Of course she was. Three centuries ago, her family
established an eponymous town, now sunken beneath
the calm surface of the lake.
Our first meeting ended frostily and unproductively but,
in the fullness of time, as she opened up to me, I found
myself looking forward to our encounters. I always
scheduled her last, so that I could exceed the 45 minutes
straightjacket of the classic therapy session. She was the
first person in a long time - who am I kidding? the first
person ever - who really listened to what I had to say.
She rarely spoke, but, when she did, it was with the twin
authority of age and wisdom. I guess I grew to love and
respect her.
I wasn't sure why Isabel sought my meager services.
She possessed enough common sense and fortitude to
put to shame any therapist I knew. She never asked for
my advice or shared her problems with me. She just
made an appearance at the appointed time and sat there,
back erect, hands resting in her lap, her best ear
forward, the better to capture my whining litany and to
commiserate.
One day, though, she entered my crude office and
remained standing.
"Isabel," - I enquired - "is everything alright?"
"You know that I have been provided with a residence
on Elm Street, now that my family home is underwater."
The "residence" was an imposing mansion, with an
enormous driveway, an English, sculpted garden, and a
series of working fountains. Isabel rented the place from
a British-Canadian mogul of sorts, as she disdainfully
informed me a while back.
"It's been invaded by strangers." - She made a dramatic
announcement.
I looked at her, not comprehending:
"You mean burglars? Squatters? Who are these
strangers? Why don't you call the Police to evict them?
It could be dangerous, you know!"
She waved away my concerned pleas impatiently:
"I can't call the police to evict them because they have
assumed the bodies of my family members."
When she saw the bafflement in my eyes, she reiterated
slowly, as if aiming to get through to a slow-witted, yet
cherished, interlocutor:
"These invaders - they look like my husband and my
son. But they are not. They are doubles. They are
somehow wrong, fake, ersatz, if you know what I
mean."
I didn't.
"I love my real relatives but not the current occupants of
their corporeal remains. I keep my door locked at
night!"
She made it sound like an unprecedented event.
"Isabel, sit down, please." - I said and she did, white-
jointed hands clenched and venous. I decided not to
confront her illogic but rather to leverage it to expose
the absurdity of her assertions.
"Why would these body-snatchers go to all this
trouble?"
"Don't be silly!" - She snapped - "Money, of course!
They are after my fortune! These look-alikes are
planning to murder me and abscond with my
considerable fortune. They are all in my will, you see,
and they know it! But they can't wait their turn, they are
anxious to lay their dirty paws on my checkbook! They
are afraid that I will change my mind!"
"You sound like you are referring to your true
relatives." - I pointed out.
She recoiled:
"These criminals that took over my family, I want them
gone! I want my husband back and my son!'
"Then why don't you simply alter your will and let them
know about it? Announce the changes in a family
gathering! That way they will lose all interest in you and
move on to their next victim! That way, all incentives to
murder you will be removed, you see."
She glanced at me dumbfounded:
"That's a wonderful idea, dear! You are so clever, you
are so astute when you put your mind to it! Thank you!
You can't imagine what a relief it is to strike upon the
solution to such an impossible situation!"
She sprang from the creaky armchair and extended her
hand to fondle my cheek:
"Thank you, honey. You made me proud."
I felt like a million dollars.
2. The Syndrome
Milton's eyeglasses glinted unsettlingly as he took in my
crumpled clothes and unruly hair:
"So, you traveled all night, by yourself, in a hired car, to
ask me this? She must mean all the world to you!"
He hasn't changed: cherubic, lecherous, bald, and clad
in fading dungarees and Sellotaped, stapled sandals.
Milton smelled of coffee grounds and incense.
He laid a hirsute hand on my shoulder and I retreated
inadvertently and then apologized. He smiled
mischievously:
"You are tired. Let's go to my office. You can refresh
yourself there and I will tell you everything you ever
wanted to know about the Capgras Syndrome and never
dared to ask."
"Capgras Syndrome???"
"Coffee first!" - Milton pronounced and wheeled me
forward.
*****
Ensconced in an ancient armchair, steamy libation in
hand, I listened intently, absorbing every word that
came out of the mouth of arguably the world's greatest
expert on delusions.
"It's nothing new." - Said Milton, chewing on an
ancient, ashen clay pipe - "It was first described by two
French psychiatrists in 1923. Elderly people believe that
their relatives have been replaced by malicious,
conspiring doubles. They lock themselves in, buy guns,
change their wills, complain to the authorities. If not
checked with antipsychotic medication, they become
violent. Quite a few cases of murder, resisting arrest,
that sort of thing."
"What goes wrong with these people?"
Milton shrugged and tapped the empty implement on a
much-tortured edge of his desk:
"Lots of speculation around, but nothing definite. Some
say it's a problem with face recognition. You heard of
prosopagnosia? Patients fail to identify their nearest and
dearest, even though they react emotionally when they
see them. Capgras is the mirror image, I guess: a failure
to react emotionally to familiar faces. But guess is what
we have all been doing in the last, oh, eight decades." -
He concluded with undisguised disgust.
"I need help with this client, Milton," - I interjected -
"and you are not helping me at all."
He chuckled sarcastically:
"How often do I hear it from my patients?"
"She is not paranoid, you know. Her mind is sharp and
crystal-clear and balanced."
He nodded wearily:
"That's what confounds us with this syndrome. The
patients are 'normal' by any definition of this word that
you care to adopt. They are only convinced that family
members, friends, even neighbors are being substituted
for - and, of course, they are not."
He crouched next to my seat:
"Soon, she will begin to doubt you and then herself.
Next time she catches her own reflection in a mirror or a
window, she will start to question her own identity. She
will insist that she has been replaced by an entity from
outer space or something. She is bad news. The
literature describes the case of a woman who flew into
jealous rages at the sight of her own reflection because
she thought it was another woman trying to seduce her
husband."
Milton was evidently agitated, the first I have seen him
this way. As my teacher and mentor, he kept a stiff
upper lip in the face of the most outlandish disorders
and the most all-pervasive ignorance. And in the face of
our budding, dead end love.
"What do you advise me to do?" - I mumbled almost
inaudibly.
"If she refuses anti-psychotic medication, bail out.
Commit her. She is a danger both to herself and to
others, not the least of whom, to you."
"I can't do that to her." - I protested - "I am the only
person she trusts in the whole world. She is so scared, it
breaks my heart. And just imagine what the family is
going through: she even wants to change her will to
disinherit them."
Milton's pained expression deepened:
"Then you are faced with only one alternative:
psychodrama. To save her, you must enter her world, as
convincingly as you can. Play her game, as it were.
Pretend that you believe in her lunatic delusions. Act the
part."
3. Dinner
"Will you?" - Enthused Isabel - "That's mighty fine of
you! I have arranged for everyone to join me for dinner
tomorrow evening. It's a Saturday, so people don't have
to go to work the next day."
"How very considerate." - I stammered and Isabel
laughed throatily:
"Don't be so distrait. It won't be as awkward as you fear.
Sit next to me and watch the show as I expose these
fraudsters and frustrate their plans!".
About to exit, she turned around, her wrinkled face
suddenly smooth and becalmed:
"I will be expecting you. Be there. You must be present.
For your own sake as much as for mine."
And she left the door ajar as she swooshed down the
hall and out the building, into the flaking snow.
****
Isabel never looked more imposing as she sat at the
head of the elongated table, attired in a sleeveless white
chiffon dress, no hint of make-up on her imperious,
commanding face. A beetle-shaped brooch
complemented a lavish pearl necklace that emphasized
the contours of her truly delicate neck. She was very
animated, laughed a lot, and administered light touches
of familiarity and affection to her husband and son, who
flanked her.
Her spouse, a rubicund mount of a man, face varicose
and hairy hands resting on his folded napkin, was
clearly still smitten with his wife, paying close and
ostentatious attention to her minutest wishes and
utterances. His enormous girth twitched and turned
towards her, like a plant craving the sun. His deep blue
eyes glittered every time she humored him or re-
arranged his cutlery.
The son was more reluctant, contemplating his mother
with suspicion and his father with an ill-disguised hint
of contempt. He was lanky, with a balding pate, and
sported a failed attempt at a moustache, inexpertly
daubed on his freckled face. He was also myopic and
his hands fluttered restlessly throughout the evening. I
found him most disagreeable.
There was a third person at the table: a mousy,
inconsequential thing with an excruciatingly bad
sartorial taste. She stared at everyone through a pair of
dead, black, enormous pools that passed for eyes. Her
hands were sinewy and contorted and she kept
fidgeting, clasping and unclasping an ancient purse ("a
gift from mother"), and rearranging a stray curl that kept
obscuring her view. No one introduced us and she made
it a point to avoid me, so I let it go.
The dishes cleared, Isabel came to the painful point:
"Dears," - she declared - "I summoned you today to
make an important announcement. As you well know,
my previous will and testament left everything to you,
the two exclusive loves of my life." - A hiss of
withdrawn breaths welcomed the word "previous".
"However, in the last couple of weeks, I have had
reason to suspect foul play."
They stared at her, not comprehending.
"I am convinced that you are not who you purport to be.
You look like my dearest but you are actually
impostors, doubles, hired by the perpetrators of a
malicious operation, bent of absconding with my
inheritance."
The silence was palpable as her kin, jaws dropped in
disbelief, listened to the unfolding speech with growing
horror.
"I don't know yet what you have done with my real
relatives but, rest assured, I intend to find out. Still, I am
being told by one and sundry that I may be wrong or,
frankly, that I am off my rocker, as they say."
"Hear, hear!" - Interjected her son and rose from his
seat, as though to leave the table.
"Sit down!" - Snapped Isabel and he did, meekly,
though clearly resentful.
"I have devised a test. Should you pass it, I will offer
you all my most prostrate apologies and hope for your
forgiveness. If you fail, his shall be proof of the
subterfuge. I am then bent on altering my will to
exclude all of you from it and bestow my entire estate
on my good companion here." - And she pointed at a
mortified me.
They all turned in their chairs and studied the intruder at
length. The son's lips moved furiously but he remained
inaudible. The husband merely shrugged and reverted to
face his tormentor. Only the third guest protested by
extending a pinkish tongue in my direction, careful to
remain unobserved by her hostess.
"I will ask each one of you three questions." - Proceeded
my new benefactor, unperturbed - "You can take as
much time as you need to respond to them. Once you
have given your answers, there is no going back, no
second chance. So, think carefully. Your entire
pecuniary future depends on it. These are the terms that
I am setting. You are free to leave the room now, if you
wish. Of course, by doing so, you will have forfeited
your share of my riches." - She sneered unpleasantly.
No one made a move.
"I take it then that we are all agreed." - Isabel proceeded
and turned toward her husband:
"John, or whoever you are," - He recoiled as if struck
with a fist - "what was the color of the curtains in the
small hotel where we have consummated our love for
the first time?"
"Must I go through this in public, in front of my son and
this complete stranger?" - He bellowed, his monstrous
frame towering over her. But she remained undaunted
and unmoved and finally, he settled back in his creaking
chair and resignedly mumbled:
"The room had no curtains. You complained all
morning because the sunlight shone straight on your
face and wouldn't let you fall asleep."
His visage was transformed by the memory, radiant and
gentle now, as he re-lived the moment.
"True. You have clearly done your homework." - She
confirmed reluctantly and addressed her son:
"Edward, what did you see in a book that made you cry
so violently and inconsolably when you just a toddler?"
"It was an art book. There was a color reproduction of a
painting of a group of patricians standing on an elevated
porch, glancing over the railing at a scene below them. I
can't recall any other detail, but the whole atmosphere
was tenebrous and sinister. I was so frightened that I
burst into wails. For some reason, you were not there,
you were gone!" - And he pouted as he must have done
back then when he had felt abandoned and betrayed by
his mother.
"Althea, what was I wearing the first time we met, when
Edward introduced you to me?"
Althea, the mouse, looked up in surprise:
"You introduced me to Edward, not the other way
around!" - She protested - "I met you at the clinic,
remember? Lording it over everyone, as usual." - She
laughed bitterly and I shot her a warning glance, afraid
that she might provoke Isabel into violent action -
"Anyways, you were wearing precisely what you have
on today, down to the tiniest detail. Even the brooch is
the same, if I can tell."
And so it went. All three were able to fend off Isabel's
fiendish challenges with accurate responses. Finally,
evidently exhausted, she conceded defeat:
"Though my heart informs me differently, my head
prevails and I am forced to accept that you are my true
family. I hereby offer you the prostrate apologies that I
have promised to make before." - She sprang abruptly
from her seat - "And now, I am tired, I must sleep." -
She ignored her husband's clumsy attempt to kiss her on
the cheek and, not bidding farewell or good night to any
of us, she exited the room in an apparent huff.
4. Post-Mortem
"What did you make of what you have just witnessed?"
Isabel snuck into the guest bedroom and settled into an
overstuffed armchair at a penumbral corner. She was
still wearing the same dress, though her jewelry was
gone. I watched her reflection in my makeup mirror, as I
was removing the war paint from my face, clad in my
two-part, lilac-strewn pajamas. I felt naked and
embarrassed and violated.
"They did pretty well." - I hedged my answer, not sure
where she might be leading.
"They did rather too well." - She triumphantly
proclaimed, her eyes shining.
"What do you mean by that?" - I enquired, my curiosity
genuinely awakened.
"Pray, tell me, what was I wearing when we first met?"
I couldn't conjure the image, no matter how hard I tried.
"I am not sure." - I finally admitted defeat
"What was the color of the curtains in your mother's
kitchen?"
"White, with machine embroidered strawberries or
raspberries or something of the sort."
"What was the first horror movie that you have seen?"
"I can't be expected to remember that!" - I exclaimed.
"Of course you can't, dear. No one can. You'd be lucky
to get one response out of three correct, you know." -
She agreed - "This is the point I am trying to make.
Didn't you find my family's omniscience and total recall
a trifle overdone? Didn't you ask yourself for a minute
how come they are all blessed with such supreme,
marvelous memories?"
She sounded distant and heartbroken as she said:
"I have changed my will, you know. They couldn't fool
me with their slick off-the-cuff ready-made know-it-all
responses! It's all yours now. Sleep well, my true friend
and, henceforth, my only heir!."
She glided over and kissed me on the cheek, once, like a
butterfly alighting.
*****
I was woken up by a wet kiss planted on my lips by
Isabel's husband.
"What do you think you are doing?" - I hissed and
withdrew to the top of the bed - "If you don't leave the
room this instant, I will scream!"
He looked hurt and baffled as he slid off the mattress
and stretched his monolithic corpulence.
"What's wrong?" - He enquired - "Anything I did to
offend you last night? You shouldn't have asked all
these questions if you didn't want to hear my answers,
you know!"
"Where's Isabel?" - I demanded.
He eyed me queerly and pleaded sadly:
"We are not going to go through all this again, are we,
dear?"
"Go through what and I am asking you for the last time:
where is Isabel, your wife?"
He sighed and collapsed on the bed, depressing it
considerably as he held onto one of the bedposts:
"I will call Dr. Milton. Promise me you won't do
anything stupid until he has had the chance to see you."
"I am going to call the police on you. Isabel announces
her intention to disinherit you and the next morning she
is mysteriously gone. Dead, for all I know!"
"Isabel is alive and well, I give you my word." - Said
her husband and, for some reason, I believed him. He
sounded sincere.
"Then why can't I see her?"
"You can, once Dr. Milton arrives. Is that too much to
ask? He will be here in less than half an hour. Edward
already apprised him of the situation last night."
"Last night?" - I felt confused - "What situation? And
who's Dr. Milton?"
He got up and made to leave when I noticed that my
makeup compact was gone.
"Where are my things? What have you done with my
things?"
"They are in the next room. Dr. Milton will let you have
them after he has made sure that they include nothing
dangerous."
"Dangerous?" - I exploded - "Am I a prisoner here? I
insist to use the phone! I am going to call the police
right now!"
"Please, for your own good, don't exit the room." - Said
my uninvited visitor - "I have covered the mirrors here
and have removed your make up pouch but I can't well
take care of all the reflecting surfaces: windows and
such."
"Mirrors? What are you going about? You need
professional help. I am a therapist. Won't you tell me
what the problem is? What have you done to Isabel?
Are you afraid to look at yourself in the mirror? Are you
terrified of what you might see there? Have you killed
her? Are you tormented by guilt?" - It wasn't very
professional behavior but I decided that I had nothing to
lose by abrogating the therapeutic protocol. Clearly, I
was being held hostage by a gang of killers or a
murderous cult.
"Isabel." - Said a familiar voice from across the
threshold.
"Thank God you have arrived!" - Cried Isabel's husband
- "She is having one of her attacks."
Into the chamber came Milton, clay pipe, eternal
dungarees and all. He was accompanied by a young
woman that looked startlingly familiar. She glanced at
me from across the room. She smiled. She appeared to
be friendly, so I reciprocated, hesitantly.
Milton said:
"I hope you don't mind that I have asked your therapist
to join me. She told me everything about last night. You
invited her here as your guest, you remember?"
I didn't remember anything of the sort. Still, I appraised
my "therapist" more attentively. She was a mousy,
inconsequential thing with an excruciatingly bad
sartorial taste. She stared at me through a pair of dead,
black, enormous pools that passed for eyes. Her hands
were sinewy and contorted and she kept fidgeting,
clasping and unclasping my makeup purse, and
rearranging a stray curl that kept obscuring her view.
Return
Folie a Plusieurs
I sighed:
The young agent whistled and the older one emitted one
of his soft laughs.
"In another instance, an entire family took on enormous
credits, sold their house, and quit their jobs because they
delusionally talked themselves into believing that one of
the sons was about to sign a multi-million dollar
contract with a Hollywood studio. They even hired
engineers and architects to lay out plans for a new
mansion, replete with a swimming pool."
"Why so?"
Return
The Con Man Cometh
Return
The Elephant's Call
1. The Sale
The garage was dingy and dark and the items on sale
shabby and soiled. An obese, ill-kempt woman of an
indeterminate age hovered above the articles on display,
her piggish eyes darting to and fro, monitoring the
haphazard crowd of browsers and wannabe-shoppers.
Stalactites of light tapered from the irregular cracks
that passed for windows in the bricked walls. Only the
intermittent barking of the female Cerberus interrupted
the eerie silence: "Don't touch! Take it or leave!".
Return
Lucid Dreams
1. The Doctor
He inserts the syringe into my jugular and draws blood,
spurting into the cylindrical container. Securely seated
on my chest, he then makes precise incisions around my
eyelids and attempts to extract my eyeballs in one swift
motion. I can see his round face, crooked teeth, and
shiny black eyes, perched under bushy eyebrows. A tiny
muscle flutters above his clenched jaw. His doctor's
white robe flaps as he bestrides me and pins down my
unthrashing arms.
There is only the stench of sweat and the muffled
inhalations of tortured lungs. Mine. In my ears a
drumbeat and a faraway shriek, like a seagull being
butchered in mid-flight. My brain gives orders to
phantom organs. I see them from the corners of my
bloodshot eyes: my arms, my legs, like beached whales,
bluish, gelatinous, and useless.
I scream.
I strike at him but he evades my thrust and recedes into
the murky background. I won't give chase. The doors
and windows are locked, alarm systems everywhere. He
stands no chance. He turns to vapor and materializes
next to me in bed, clad in his robe, eyes shut, a
contented smile on his face.
This is my only chance.
I turn to my side, relieved that motility is restored. I
grab his slender neck. I feel his pulse: it's fast and
irregular. I squeeze. He grunts. And harder. He clasps
my forearms and mewls. Something's not right. The
doctor never whimpers. Every night, as he peels the skin
off my face with delicacy and care, he makes no sound,
except belabored breathing. When he extracts tooth after
nail, castrates me time and again, injects detergents into
my crumbling veins, he does so inaudibly and expertly.
I hesitate.
"Max!"
Her voice.
"Max! Wake up!"
I can't wake up as I am not asleep. The doctor's there, in
our bed, a danger to us both. I must exterminate him
finally.
"Max! You are having another nightmare! Please, you
are hurting me!"
The doctor's head turns around full circle and at the
back of his flattened skull there is the face of Sarah, my
lover and my friend.
I recoil. I let go. My heart threatens to break through rib
and skin, its thrumming in my ears, my brain, my eye
sockets, my violated jugular.
I sleep.
2. Sarah
Her bags are packed, my scarlet fingerprints blemish the
whiteness of her skin, she is crying. I reach for her but
she retreats in horror, nostrils flared, eyes moist, a
nervous tic above her clenched jaw.
"I am afraid of you." - She says, voice flat.
"I didn't mean to." - I feebly protest and she shrugs:
"Yesterday, I thought I'd die."
Her hand shoots to her neck involuntarily, caressing the
sore bruises, where I attempted to strangle her at night.
"It's him, you know, the doctor."
She shudders.
"I saw him yesterday again; manicured, besuited,
coiffed, as elegant as ever. He was injecting me with
something that burned, it was not phenol, I would have
died. It was something else."
"It's over." - Says Sarah, her eyes downcast, she sounds
unconvinced.
"He's still alive." - I reason - "They haven't caught him,
you know. They say he is in Argentina."
"Wherever he may be, there's nothing he can do to you."
She steps forward, palm extended towards my cheek,
and then thinks better of it, picks up her tattered suitcase
and leaves.
3. Again, the Doctor
A rigid plastic pipe, through the large vein in my leg,
towards my ovaries. I am a woman. I am to be
sterilized. The doctor crouches at the foot of my bed,
inspecting with mounting interest my private parts.
There is a greenish liquid in a giant plunger connected
to an IV stand. He nods with satisfaction. He brandishes
a glinting surgical knife and slices my abdomen. He
takes out a squarish organ mired in gory slime, my
womb, and inspects it thoroughly.
There's blood everywhere. I can see my intestines curled
in the cavity, wrapped tight in an opaque and pulsating
sheet. Two ribs are visible and underneath them, my
oversized heart. My breathing sears.
I chose tonight to be a woman. I want him to be at ease,
not on the alert. I want him to be immersed in
rearranging my organs, tearing them apart, sowing them
back reversed. I want him to forget himself in the
sandbox that is my body.
He leans over me, to study whether my left breast is
lactating.
It is not.
I reach for the hypodermic and detach it in one swift
motion.
I stick it in his jugular.
I press the plunger.
The doctor gurgles.
He whimpers and mewls.
He watches me intently as his senses dull and his body
grows limp.
There is blood everywhere. The doctor drowns in it, my
blood and his, a forbidden mixture.
4. The Police
"Was he a medical doctor?"
"Not that I am aware of."
The burly policeman scrawled in his threadbare pad.
The psychiatrist shifted in her overstuffed armchair:
"Why are you asking?"
She was a scrawny, bleached blonde and wore high
heels and a plate-sized pendant to work. The cop sighed
and slid a crime scene photograph across the burrowed
surface of the desk.
"It's tough viewing. I hope you didn't have breakfast." -
He quipped.
She covered her mouth with a dainty, wrinkled hand as
she absorbed the details.
"I can explain that." - She literally threw the photo back
at her interlocutor.
He grimaced: "Go ahead, then."
"My patient is wearing the white doctor's robe because
one of his alters was a Nazi camp doctor."
The policeman blinked:
"Beg your pardon?"
"My patient was a Polish Jew. He spent three years in
various concentration camps, including Auschwitz."
"I heard of Auschwitz." - Said the policeman smugly.
"There, he and his young wife, Sarah, were subjected to
medical experiments conducted by Nazi doctors in
white robes."
"Medical experiments?"
"You don't want to know the details, believe me." - It
was the psychiatrist's turn at one-upmanship.
But the officer was insistent.
"They sterilized his wife. At first, they injected some
substance to her ovaries through a vein in her leg. Then
they extracted her womb and what was left of her
reproductive system. She was awake the entire time.
They did not bother with antiseptics. She died of
infection in excruciating pain."
The policeman coughed nervously.
"When my patient was liberated, at the beginning of
1945, he developed a host of mental health problems.
One of them was Dissociative Identity Disorder,
formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder."
The cop scribbled something and mumbled to himself.
"He had three alters. In other words, his original
personality fractured to at least three parts: the original
He, another part that assumed the identity of his dead
wife, and a part that became the doctor that tortured
them. In the last few years, every night, he enacted
scenes from their incarceration. The doctor would come
to him, an hour or so after he fell asleep, and conduct
various procedures on his body."
"Jesus!" - Blurted the policeman and went visibly pale.
"This is called 'night terror'. The subject is asleep. You
cannot wake him up. But he believes himself to be wide
awake and experiences extremes of terror. Usually, he
cannot even respond because he is momentarily
paralyzed. We call it 'sleep paralysis'"
"But then, if he cannot move, how did he kill himself? It
was clearly suicide. We found the syringe. Only his
fingerprints are on it. We were able to trace down the
pharmacy where he bought it. He injected himself with
some kind of acidic home detergent."
"Yes, it was suicide." - Agreed the psychiatrist, shut her
eyes, and rubbed her temples - "As he grew older, he
also developed Rapid Eye Movement Behavioral
Disorder. This meant that after he was paralyzed by the
night terror, he was actually able to enact it at a later
stage of his sleep. He played the doctor, he played
himself resisting the doctor, he played his wife being
mutilated by the doctor. He wielded knives, syringes,
wounded himself numerous times. You can find all the
hospital admission forms in his file. I gave him anti-
depressants. We talked. Nothing helped. He was beyond
help. Some patients are beyond help." - Her voice
quivered.
5. Help
"I killed him, Sarah, he's dead."
"I am glad."
"He will no longer bother us. We can be together again.
I won't be having the dreams. I won't be attacking you
anymore."
"That's good, Max."
"I peeled his face back, as he did to me. I injected him
with the green liquid as he did to you. Revenge is sweet.
I know it now."
"I love you, Max."
"And I never stopped loving you, Sarah. Not for a single
moment."
A Dream Come True
When all the formalities were over, the judge rose from
his chair and we all stood up. As he reached the
entrance door to his chambers, he turned around,
puzzled:
"By the way, where is his wife? I haven't seen her even
once during these proceedings. Anyone has
communicated with her? Technically, she is his
guardian, you know."
Return
The Galatea of Cotard
We watch the dusk-drenched pyramids from our hotel
room balcony and I say: “You got it all wrong, ma. He
is not dead. We are.” Her stony face immobile, she
wouldn’t look at me: “He has been dead for well over a
decade, dear. You are confused.” I fidget and she hates
it. I smirk, she hates it even more. I say: “He got me
with a child. I had to rid myself of it.” She nods,
exasperated.
She takes a deep breath and exhales the words: “If you
are truly deceased, then how are we conversing?”
He sighed:
“Mariam?”
“You fell asleep and tossed and turned all night. I could
hear you from my chamber. You then came to me, your
eyes still shut. You ... you had me then, you knew me. It
is the truth. Throughout the deed you never woke. I was
afraid. I did not know whether to resist would have
meant the end of you. You were as though possessed!”
Mariam beseeched:
*****************
That night, he slept and in his sleep he dreamt an angel.
And the angel regarded him with great compassion and
said to him:
“Yoseph! Fear not to take unto thee Mariam thy wife for
that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit and
she shall bring forth a son and thou shalt call his name
Yeshua for he shall save his people from their sins.”
Return
THE AUTHOR
My Web Sites:
Economy/Politics:
http://ceeandbalkan.tripod.com/
Psychology:
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/
Philosophy:
http://philosophos.tripod.com/
Poetry:
http://samvak.tripod.com/contents.html
Fiction:
http://samvak.tripod.com/sipurim.html
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